Our Weekend - From Friday Movie Night to Hockey to Summer Coming Home to a Mess in the Sewing Room to......

We have had a weekend chock full of all sorts of activities.
We went to Dallas Friday afternoon to meet Amber and the kids at our favorite yogurt place.
Louis Dean and I arrived first.
You should have seen the kids when they walked in and saw their Granddad!!

They were so excited to see him and HE was so excited to see them!

They are growing so fast I can hardly believe it!

What with losing teeth one right after the other - and with four children the same age - that's a lot of loose teeth for parents to have to deal with!

We went back to Quadville with the kids while Amber ran some errands.

Harrison asked me to sew the loose eye on his eye mask I gave him for Christmas.

I had my needlework with me so it didn't take but a few minutes to do that small task plus I sewed the other eye down better while I was at it. He was so impressed.

They think their MeeMaw can fix anything in the same way I think Louis Dean can!

It does my soul good to be around children.

Friday Movie Night includes Pizza, Popcorn, Cokes and a movie - of course.

This one was so cute!!

Winnie the Pooh was one of Amber's favorite from her childhood.

She watched the Winnie the Pooh cartoons and we still sing song the phrase they sang when going into a commercial....."After these messages, we'll be right back......"

It was a fun evening and we slept like babies on the new flannel sheets Amber had for the guest bed.

It's wonderful waking up in a house where children live and with four of them - someone is always being especially entertaining at any given time.

The first thing on the Saturday schedule was hockey practice.

We were pretty amazed at the morning routine.......

they all got themselves downstairs with their teeth brushes and their clothes on.

Amber came down fully dressed and started right in on cooking breakfast.....bacon, eggs and fried potatoes......served up in a plastic bowl to eat en route to practice. I brushed and braided the girls hair and we were off to the races. Amber's goal was to get there at 10:00 and we walked in at 10:02!

Mike was away on a hunting trip so she was running solo.

Gearing all four of them up in their skates, pads, leggings and all is a long, hard, complicated process.

Louis Dean and I are not all that much help due to my arthritic hands and his general bewilderment at what goes where. So....amber called in reinforcements!

Her BFF! Jessica and Amber were synchro duet partners back when they were just seven years old swimming to the Wizard of Oz. Jessica recently moved back to the DFW area and it was so special to see them together - helping and supporting one another just as they did all those years when they were swimming.

It made my heart happy to sit behind them and watch them watch the kids skate.

I teared up a bit remembering all those years when I would watch these two swim and compete together. That group of synchronized swimmers were a very good team and swam together all through their growing up years. What's so wonderful is how they have remained close to this very day. They are all in their 30's now and still steadfast friends.

It was a good day!

We ate lunch together at Chipolte's and then dropped Louis Dean off at home and I went back to Amber's to spend the afternoon.

She took photos of my Western Santa painting and then ordered my Christmas cards for me.

We watched a movie and cut up 50 brown paper grocery sacks in the shape of shirts for the school Thanksgiving program.

I admire Amber for so many things but one thing especially - she has her priorities right. She puts spending time with her children and her family at the top of her list. So yesterday I followed her example. I chose to spend the day with those I love instead of rushing home to clean and do the endless number of chores and projects. I chose wisely.

As wonderful as our time was over there this weekend - there was some sadness, too.

They have two labs - Shiner and Jersey.

Shiner is a trained hunting dog but has had some serious health issues.

He had to have his eye removed due to cancer and, sadly, the cancer has come back.

I was sitting at the kitchen table playing games with the girls when I noticed Jersey keeping watch over Shiner.

At first she was sitting on the other side of him and I saw her lift her paw and touch his head.

By the time I got my camera ready she had walked around to this side of him.

The vet said he doesn't have much time left and I think Jersey knows this.

It breaks my heart. Not just for Shiner but for Jersey Girl when she loses him.

It will be hard for Amber and Mike and the kids.....

and me. We all love this dog.

The pain of losing him will be more than worth the joy he brought them, though.

I finally went home about 7:30 Saturday evening and Louis Dean was waiting on the porch for me.

He heard we would be having a freeze in the next few days so he had brought in his aloe vera plants.

Now he needed special potting soil to re pot some of them. Bless his heart - when he gets something in his head - he wants to do it right this minute! So I took him up to Home Depot. Crisis averted!

I had just enough time to get the last few fall things out to the storage building where Louis Dean has stowed them all away. 

He did a great job in stacking and packing them! There's two other full packed shelves of decorations not in this picture. I have a lot of fall!

Summer left San Juan and had a layover in Miami before finally heading to FDW!

I picked her up at 10:30 Saturday night and it was so good to see her!

She had a great time in Puerto Rico!

Sabrina and Rayne will be here in just 10 days!

We came in and sat in the one clean room in the house - the guest room - and visited for awhile.

Then we went out to the den and watched a Hallmark Christmas movie.

She said only we would start a movie at 10 minutes to 1:00 in the morning!

Even so - Louis Dean and I got to church on time Sunday!

We are really loving this church!

I like how they sing Happy Trails at the end of the service.

Today was a Thanksgiving Dinner and there was quite a crowd and a ton of food!

I took a sweet potato casserole and am proud to say that there was not a bite of it left!

We sat with friends I had gone to church with years and another life ago.

It felt good to be in church.

Back home and back to reality this afternoon.

This area in the sewing room is basically like a closet for my sewing and crafts.

I pulled everything out that was on the floor.

Then I covered the tubs that remained with plastic tablecloths.

My sewing room is now officially trashed!

You can see where I barely have room to squeeze in to my desk chair at the computer.

Louis Dean determined he needed to cut out a section of the ceiling and pull down the wet insulation.

He cut it out and - behold! - it was bone dry!

No moldy mildew mess after all!

Apparently, he didn't need to take the ceiling down after all!

OOPS!!!

Rain was in the forecast tonight so we would wait and watch hoping to see where the rain was coming in. Right on cue - it started to rain. And the water started dripping. And we still don't know why. That part of the roof is fixed. As a matter of fact - he's roofed nearly ALL of the back side of the house! Now I'm not only overwhelmed by this huge mess - but I am going crazy over this whole ordeal! And I'm wondering just what Louis Dean is going to do next. Rest assured - he WILL fix it.

But now I have a section of ceiling down when it was just one small hole that would have been easier to fix!

To keep myself from going to pieces - which will not help anything - I did what I do best.

I did some decorating in Louis Dean's bathroom.

I'm going with a rustic manly pine cone theme.

 When there's a lot of chaos around, it helps me if I can restore order in at least one area.

The fireplace is another comfort for me.

We are going to have freezing temps starting tomorrow night and that makes good fireplace weather!

The Hallmark Christmas Movies have also helped smooth my ruffled feathers a bit.

It's very late as I finish this journal entry.
I'm sitting up in bed with my laptop on the bed tray and the back door open to the cool rainy weather.
I intend to do some serious praying about that leaking roof!
Of one thing I am absolutely certain.....
God has a way of working everything out.
I'm counting on him!